Holý, Ondřej František [Holly; Holli, Andreas Franz]

(bc1747; d Breslau, 4 May 1783). Czech composer and theatre orchestra director. His name is not listed in baptismal registers of anywhere that could be the ‘Böhmisch Luba’ given as his birthplace in earliest sources. The claims that he attended the Jesuit Gymnasium in Prague and was later a novice of the Franciscan order cannot be substantiated. In 1768 or 1769 Holý joined the theatrical troupe of Joseph von Brunian at the Kotzen theatre in Prague, succeeding the former music director Johann Baptist Savio as co-répétiteur; when the troupe was reorganized in April 1772 Holý became its Kapellmeister. He set several Singspiel texts written by an actor of the troupe, Karl Franz Henisch (1745–76). When Henisch left Prague Holý followed him to Berlin (not earlier than about 1773), where he became music director of the Koch troupe, and then to Breslau, where he was music director of the Wäser troupe from about 1774 until his death.

Because Prague audiences in the late 1760s were not enthusiastic about Italian opera seria, Holý modelled his stage works on the type of German comic opera initiated by J.A. Hiller and C.F. Weisse. At about the same time as his fellow Czech Georg Benda, he contributed to the development of Singspiel not only in northern Germany but also in Vienna, where his most successful comic opera, Der Kaufmann von Smyrna, was staged in 1776 and 1781. Most of the manuscripts are lost, although the Breitkopf catalogues (1779–84; see Brook) list extant scores and parts of a number of the Singspiele.